Safaricom Report Links KDF To Theft Of Phones During The Westgate Attack

Safaricom Report, has Links KDF to Theft of their Merchandize during and after a terrorist attack on the Westgate Shopping Mall, where numerous mobile phones and airtime at the Safaricom Westgate Retail Centre were stolen. Safaricom carried out a detailed analysis on stolen merchandise to determine key suspects involved in this theft between 25th and 27th September 2013.

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According to the report, of all the handsets that were stolen from Westgate shop, 528 handsets (valued at KES 5.5 M) had been used on their network as on 10th December 2013. A total of 1,283 unique mobile numbers had used these handsets. 618 of these numbers were found to be frequently located in military sites;

• 98 mobile numbers had used the stolen handsets more than once;
• 73 mobile numbers which used the stolen handsets were at Westgate at certain instances during the period of theft (25th to 27th September 2013);
• Normal operating locations of 48 mobile numbers out of the 73 which were at Westgate at the time of loss seem to be in the military camp locations.

The damning report indicates that, the users of the stolen merchandise are either military officers or live within the military facilities based on the following observations:

• They have been consistently located in or around military facilities in the last three months;
• Some of the individuals used mobile numbers that were registered using military ID numbers;
• They were located at Westgate between 25th and 27th September when the military rescue operation was ongoing. At that time the premises were restricted and could only be accessed by KDF personnel and other security agents.

Safaricom recommends that KDF conducts further investigations to ascertain whether these individuals are members of their organization and if so, hold them accountable for their actions. Safaricom will provide any other information, in its possession, to assist KDF in these investigations.

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